Sunday, 5 December 2010

Shooting For Detainee 238

There are 6 scenes in our film. The first scene begins with the children sleeping in their bedrooms.

They then descend down the stairs into the living room where they begin to write a letter to the president where the child pleads for the release of his father.

The scene which follows this is when the father Ahmed is being questioned in the police station. We had to book the interview room at the police station. The station base which we used was Limehouse Police station. We were prompted with the rules and regulations on our arrival. We used one of the PC’s to act as an officer who questions our main actor. However, we were not allowed to film the faces of the officers present as this would go against their policy. We requested for a tape recorder and tapes to add to the realism of the scene and atmosphere. This was included whilst filming.

The PC had to sign the film location release contract as it was formalities to do so. After this we asked if we could have a tour of the cells the PC had to consult his superior and he agreed to it. He spoke about the Bill which once aired on ITV. He told us about the cost of them borrowing London Met’s props which cost the show thousands of pounds each year.

It was a very different atmosphere whilst walking past dozens of steel bolted doors and having many cameras point at my direction. Seeing the high security procedures which are taken on places such as this allowed me to understand how hard police officers must work. We then spoke to the sergeant and the PC who spoke to us about the nature of their job which was really interesting. The line I particularly remember was when he said ‘no two days are the same’. I thought wow. All in all having the privilege to film in such location was a great experience as they do not usually allow such happening.

The scene which we filmed after this is when the father Ahmed, is doing community service. For this scene we used a caged in pitch, we had to throw loads of rubbish around again to add to the realism we were trying to create. We got the rubbish from our college, we collected shredded paper and A4 paper which was to be recycled. Junaid, who is playing Ahmed as well one of our group member had to wear an orange suit which we had hired from Amnesty International.

The following pictures are the aftermath of the rubbish and the hard work of attempting to clean up.

We then shot the eye line match of when Ahmed looks over to empty swings which are moving with the wind he then hallucinates his two sons playing on the swings who then disappear again.

There are still more scenes to shoot which is the presidents office scene and the sorting room scene which will be filmed this week.

1 comment:

Great that you asked questions about other film projects that have worked with that police station. Learning about shooting The Bill should help you to compare your work to real media products. Well done.